At the early hour when I had these memories and many others, memories of a country that I shall see, God willing, we were about to reach half of the plain, and we had for a small douar and huge herds belonging to the Ouled-d’Hya, fraction of the Ouled-Nayl. It was the first douar we met since our entry into the Sahara, and our night halt in Ouled-Moktar.

In this season, the nomads are beginning to get closer to their summer pastures, and the plain is deserted.

We headed straight to the tents, it was hot, and we still had to cross a long strip of yellow sand that we see shining between the mountain and we, rough pass at noon, under a cloudless sun.

The Kaid received us. It did nothing but unleash the horses, and took just enough time to rest in the shade, eating dates and drinking camel milk, water, water being here, and rarer still that most detestable elsewhere.

The douar of no more than fifteen or twenty tents, which represents only the smallest of hamlets nomads, but he had every aspect of real tough Saharan camps, and in a very small example, it was for that would not have known, a complete picture of nomadic life in his hours of rest.